1 00:00:04,130 --> 00:00:08,150 [Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] All right. Well, I'm very pleased to introduce our first, uh, full length talk for today. 2 00:00:08,900 --> 00:00:17,060 We have Simon Harbin, who is professor of English language and literature and fellow and tutor in English at Malden College, Oxford. 3 00:00:17,690 --> 00:00:21,020 He has published widely on medieval literature and the English language. 4 00:00:21,740 --> 00:00:27,950 He has lectured to a variety of audiences on C.S. Lewis and has published articles on Lewis's scholarly writings. 5 00:00:28,610 --> 00:00:36,409 He is the author of C.S. Lewis Oxford with the Bodleian Publishing, which examines the role that Oxford, its colleges, libraries, 6 00:00:36,410 --> 00:00:43,700 chapels, common rooms and pubs played in fostering the work of one of the 20th century's most influential writers and thinkers. 7 00:00:44,270 --> 00:00:52,720 So please welcome Professor Simon Harman. Thank you so much. 8 00:00:52,740 --> 00:01:00,240 Thanks, Grace, for the introduction. Um, and this, I think, follows on quite neatly from what Caroline's just been talking about, 9 00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:04,290 because what I want to think about is where the origins of Narnia lie. 10 00:01:04,650 --> 00:01:12,330 Uh, and particularly thinking about it in relation to Kes Lewis's, uh, biography, his early years, but also particularly his Oxford life. 11 00:01:12,750 --> 00:01:18,930 Um, and I thought that, uh, a useful starting point for that would be the moment when he first matriculated in Oxford. 12 00:01:18,940 --> 00:01:25,649 And we have a nice photo here of his matriculation at University College in, uh, April 1917. 13 00:01:25,650 --> 00:01:28,950 And here he is with the entire student body, uh, you. 14 00:01:29,260 --> 00:01:32,330 And it's quite, uh, it's quite telling, I think, isn't it? 15 00:01:32,370 --> 00:01:35,640 What sort of strange time it was to come up and be a student in Oxford. 16 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:40,020 And in fact, Lewis himself by November of that year was also on the Western Front. 17 00:01:41,310 --> 00:01:48,120 But that's him back, right, by the way. Um, if you don't recognise him and he's actually a student there of classics. 18 00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:51,960 So Caroline is talking about the importance of the Oxford English course. 19 00:01:52,530 --> 00:01:57,839 Uh, but the classical course is obviously also important to, uh, as we know and as you heard yesterday from, 20 00:01:57,840 --> 00:02:05,010 uh, Beppo Pettine and Lewis, uh, unlike Tolkien, completed the, um, the Oxford Classics degree. 21 00:02:05,130 --> 00:02:08,670 I mean, the, the break for, uh, fighting in the First World War. 22 00:02:08,670 --> 00:02:15,960 He came back, returned to Oxford at the beginning of 1919 and did his, uh, classics degree, getting a double first. 23 00:02:16,470 --> 00:02:20,330 And then at the end of it, he set out to become an academic philosopher, in fact, 24 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:25,680 applied for philosophy jobs, including one, uh, in classical languages and literature and mood length. 25 00:02:26,250 --> 00:02:31,410 Uh, but he was unsuccessful. We still have his rejection letter in the college archives. 26 00:02:32,370 --> 00:02:35,970 Um, but, uh, in the meantime, 27 00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:43,530 his tutor suggested that it would be a good idea to do an English degree because there were more jobs going in English at that time. 28 00:02:43,620 --> 00:02:48,870 It was a relatively new subject, and he thought that would increase his opportunities to to get an academic position. 29 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:57,900 And so and given that Lewis had read much of the Oxford English course already, uh, even though, uh, as we heard it was focussed really on the, 30 00:02:58,140 --> 00:03:04,320 uh, old Middle English, uh, periods, that was essentially what Lewis read as a, as a, as a young man. 31 00:03:04,500 --> 00:03:07,950 So he was already pretty well read in that course. 32 00:03:07,950 --> 00:03:12,150 And in fact, he did it in a year and graduated with another first. 33 00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:18,680 And at this point, Maudlin College advertised its first tutorial fellowship in English. 34 00:03:18,690 --> 00:03:22,649 This is in 1925, and Lewis successfully applied for it. 35 00:03:22,650 --> 00:03:27,959 So it turned out to be great advice from his tutor because he he snapped up a job quite soon afterwards, 36 00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:36,750 so he moved in to more laid into the new buildings here in the summer of 1925 was actually the centenary of that moment right now. 37 00:03:37,410 --> 00:03:39,840 Um, and here he is sitting in his rooms, um, 38 00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:49,170 in this familiar surroundings that we often see pictures of him surrounded by numerous pipes and ink wells and the tools of his trade, I suppose. 39 00:03:49,820 --> 00:03:55,830 Um, and he was here from 1925 to 1954, uh, when he moved to Cambridge. 40 00:03:55,830 --> 00:03:59,639 But of course, he done much of his writing during that Oxford period. 41 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:03,270 So, again, I think this focus on Oxford is quite relevant. 42 00:04:03,300 --> 00:04:13,190 Thinking about Lewis two. And it's also in those rooms that he met with, uh, the inklings, 43 00:04:13,550 --> 00:04:20,510 which is obviously another important group for thinking about Oxford Fantasy, which sort of coalesced around Lewis and Tolkien. 44 00:04:21,050 --> 00:04:25,700 It's actually a group that began at University College. It was founded by one of the students there. 45 00:04:26,150 --> 00:04:33,470 Um, and they gave it the name inklings. But when the student left, the group fizzled out and Lewis and Tolkien kept meeting. 46 00:04:33,740 --> 00:04:37,040 And then they took the group from the name to Merlin, 47 00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:42,760 where it would meet on a Thursday night after dinner to read to each other from the work that they were writing. 48 00:04:42,770 --> 00:04:48,200 We all know about the Inklings and The Eagle and Child, which is also, uh, a regular meeting haunt. 49 00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:57,410 But actually that was a Tuesday morning sort of drinking and gossiping kind of event rather than the serious business of reading to each other. 50 00:04:57,860 --> 00:05:03,020 So I think the importance of of the interaction between these groups is obviously significant for Lewis. 51 00:05:03,350 --> 00:05:09,440 And it's worth remembering that, uh, he didn't begin his fantasy writing with Narnia. 52 00:05:09,470 --> 00:05:14,390 Um, so this is a famous quotation from a letter that Tolkien wrote in the 60s, uh, 53 00:05:14,450 --> 00:05:21,530 about how they began the process of writing, um, what for Lewis became, uh, space travel books. 54 00:05:21,890 --> 00:05:28,100 Um, where apparently Lewis had said to Tolkien one day, toddlers, there's too little of what we really like in stories. 55 00:05:28,100 --> 00:05:34,860 I'm afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves. We agree that he should write space travel, and I should write time travel. 56 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:43,880 And so that's what led to Lewis writing out of the Silent Planet, the first of what became a trilogy, uh, Para Lander and then That Hideous Strength. 57 00:05:44,420 --> 00:05:49,640 Um, and of course, Tolkien, in the meantime, wrote some of, but not very much of The Lost Road. 58 00:05:50,930 --> 00:05:56,450 And the inklings was a really quite productive period for Lewis that those Second World War years, 59 00:05:56,750 --> 00:06:03,080 when he wrote much of his, uh, best known works, the first of his apologetics, Problem of Pain. 60 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:09,640 And then, as I said, out of the Silent Planet, which was also read to the inklings, uh, Screwtape Letters, then Peril, Landry, 61 00:06:09,800 --> 00:06:15,530 The Great Divorce, and the meantime, Tolkien's reading what they called the New Hobbit book, which was obviously Lord of the rings. 62 00:06:15,950 --> 00:06:20,750 And that's that famous inklings letter, which you've probably seen reproduced in various books. 63 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:27,860 It's a it's a thank you letter that Lewis wrote to one of his American supporters who sent him food parcels, 64 00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:30,650 uh, during and after the war, because of rationing. 65 00:06:31,010 --> 00:06:40,580 Um, and they've just at this point eaten ham that he sent, um, and partake and partake in of his health, drank his health, and then they all sign it. 66 00:06:40,610 --> 00:06:44,060 So you can see we've got Lewis we've got at the bottom. 67 00:06:44,270 --> 00:06:50,720 Uh, J.R.R. Tolkien, uh, but we also have Christopher Tolkien, who was invited along when he was a student here in Oxford. 68 00:06:51,260 --> 00:06:56,690 And, uh, he also read English. I should point out, in fact, was taught by C.S. Lewis. 69 00:06:57,140 --> 00:07:01,580 Um, and, um, but then other people to some from the English faculty. 70 00:07:01,580 --> 00:07:05,479 So Hugo Dyson and Lord David Cecil, both members of the English faculty. 71 00:07:05,480 --> 00:07:08,930 But Colin Hardy was a tutor in classics at maudlin. 72 00:07:09,170 --> 00:07:17,470 And then we've also got, um, uh, Harvard, uh, Robert Harvard, who was Lewis's doctor, and Warnie Lewis's. 73 00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:22,730 He was a returning soldier, Lewis's brother. Uh, so it's a bit more of a mixed group. 74 00:07:22,970 --> 00:07:29,840 Um, but I think it does still focus in and around the university, and particularly the study of English and classics. 75 00:07:31,030 --> 00:07:36,310 And one of the things to point out about this, in sort of my prelude to thinking about Narnia, 76 00:07:36,700 --> 00:07:42,400 is that what made Lewis famous, in fact, was The Screwtape Letters. 77 00:07:43,550 --> 00:07:49,970 You know, that's what makes him become a household name both here and in the USA. 78 00:07:50,660 --> 00:07:56,540 Um, so, for instance, you know, you may have seen this picture of him appearing on time magazine. 79 00:07:57,620 --> 00:08:02,150 Uh, which was dated to, uh, September 1947. 80 00:08:03,060 --> 00:08:08,240 It's 1947. So that's when he's really become, you know, very big name in the US. 81 00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:15,550 And you can see the devil on his shoulder that, uh, and it says Oxford, C.S. Lewis, his heresy, Christianity. 82 00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:22,550 So, you know, sort of reference explicitly to, um, to Screwtape, the book that became such a bestseller. 83 00:08:23,270 --> 00:08:31,640 And, um, the point to sort of emphasise there is that, of course, that's before he didn't begun publishing the Narnia stories. 84 00:08:32,240 --> 00:08:41,569 So this is this is what made him a big name. He, even in Britain, appeared in a photoshoot in Vogue magazine in July 1950. 85 00:08:41,570 --> 00:08:45,050 I don't know how many maudlin fellows have ever had a photoshoot in Vogue. 86 00:08:45,500 --> 00:08:49,250 Uh, spike? Not many. Yeah, it's. I ever get invited to do one. 87 00:08:49,250 --> 00:08:51,080 I'm not going to do it in my dressing gown. 88 00:08:51,530 --> 00:08:59,839 Uh uh, it famously was very cold in the new buildings in that period, with sort of rationing on coal and those central heating. 89 00:08:59,840 --> 00:09:04,010 So he did teach in his dressing gown. Um, but why he did the photo shoot in it. 90 00:09:04,010 --> 00:09:08,300 I have no idea what exactly that pose it's supposed to be. I'm also unclear. 91 00:09:09,290 --> 00:09:17,359 Um, okay. So and 1950 is actually the date of the first of the Narnia stories, The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe. 92 00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:22,370 But it didn't come out until October of that year. So again, it sort of proves my point. 93 00:09:22,370 --> 00:09:31,370 I think that it he was still a household name, uh, or at least the, the he was very well known before the books for which he is best known today. 94 00:09:32,840 --> 00:09:38,360 So that brings me on to the 19 stories, and particularly The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe, 95 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:42,290 and to sort of address that question of where did this come from? 96 00:09:42,290 --> 00:09:50,150 Because actually, it's not an obvious move for a bachelor dom living in Maudling College in his 40s, 97 00:09:50,540 --> 00:09:54,710 who's written some fantasy fiction, but also lots of Christian apologetics. 98 00:09:55,160 --> 00:10:03,200 At the time, he was working on his major contribution, uh, to scholarship, which was his volume for the Oxford History of English Literature, 99 00:10:03,650 --> 00:10:06,890 which took him so long, and he always called it the oh [INAUDIBLE] volume. 100 00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:12,620 Uh, but but he did, you know, eventually publish it as a major contribution to the study of the 16th century. 101 00:10:12,740 --> 00:10:14,180 So he was working on that. 102 00:10:14,660 --> 00:10:22,250 Um, and you might think, well, why at that point would he decide to write a children's story, uh, and why this particular kind of children's story? 103 00:10:22,520 --> 00:10:27,350 Well, of course, there are lots of different explanations, and probably the best known one. 104 00:10:27,620 --> 00:10:32,959 Certainly, if you hire an Oxford tour guide to take you around Oxford, this is the one that you will be told. 105 00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:41,810 Which is that, uh, it was walking out of, uh, Saint Mary, the Virgin University church one snowy winter's evening, 106 00:10:42,290 --> 00:10:47,299 uh, that he found himself in Saint Mary's passage, uh, with the, uh, 107 00:10:47,300 --> 00:10:55,040 the lamp post and then opposite him, this doorway with these two, um, strikingly, uh, uh, 108 00:10:55,640 --> 00:11:03,080 gilded fawns on either side of it and then carved into the wooden door what appears to be a lion. 109 00:11:03,770 --> 00:11:12,470 It's head that gave Lewis that moment where suddenly all those different features of the first Narnia story kind of coalesced in his imagination. 110 00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:18,830 And so you've got, um, Lucy going through the wardrobe and being confronted by, uh, Mr. Tumnus, 111 00:11:19,580 --> 00:11:25,010 the blanket of snow, the lamp post of lantern waste, and then subsequently, Aslan. 112 00:11:26,090 --> 00:11:34,100 And that's obviously a great story. I'm somewhat sceptical of it as I will as I will explain, but I can see it's it's power. 113 00:11:34,550 --> 00:11:39,330 Uh, and of course, you know, when we talk about Lewis's Oxford, we need to think about that. 114 00:11:39,350 --> 00:11:45,530 The Oxford today and the way that Lewis has his own stories of start a parts of the Oxford that we know today. 115 00:11:45,530 --> 00:11:50,480 And I sometimes take people round Oxford talking about, uh, Lewis's legacy. 116 00:11:50,930 --> 00:11:59,150 And, uh, I can be sure in fact, I did it about a couple of weeks ago, went to the to that very spot to to pour cold water on that very story. 117 00:11:59,510 --> 00:12:05,180 And no fewer than three different tourist groups turned up to tell exactly that story while I was there. 118 00:12:05,180 --> 00:12:10,040 So it's kind of prove my point, but it also shows how powerful, how powerful the story is. 119 00:12:10,490 --> 00:12:12,000 The reason why I'm sceptical of it. 120 00:12:12,020 --> 00:12:19,880 Well, there are a number of reasons, but the key bone, I suppose, is that Lewis gave a very different account of where the story came from. 121 00:12:20,270 --> 00:12:23,059 Uh, when he was interviewed, uh, and asked about it, 122 00:12:23,060 --> 00:12:30,950 he said all seven of my Narnia books and my three science fiction books began with seeing pictures in my head. 123 00:12:31,700 --> 00:12:34,850 At first they were not a story, just pictures. 124 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:41,390 The lion all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy woods. 125 00:12:42,020 --> 00:12:50,900 This picture had been in my head since I was about 16, and one day when I was about 40, I said to myself, let's try to make a story about it. 126 00:12:52,100 --> 00:12:55,680 So it's quite an intriguing account, isn't it? Um. 127 00:12:55,700 --> 00:13:02,260 And Lewis himself casts scorn elsewhere, by the way, on accounts that authors gave of how stories came to him. 128 00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:08,810 Which makes you wonder about it. But but, you know, he's very clear on the idea that it begins with pictures. 129 00:13:09,440 --> 00:13:12,440 Uh, just as Tolkien says, it all began with names. 130 00:13:12,950 --> 00:13:21,860 Um. Or words for Lewis. It's visual. Um, but it goes back to when he was about 16, uh, which is before he ever set foot in Oxford. 131 00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:29,420 Uh, so if we want to be, you know, sort of really literal about this, then it really can't have been that doorway that inspired him. 132 00:13:29,780 --> 00:13:34,159 Um, but of course, that just pushes it back to his Belfast childhood. 133 00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:40,970 And of course, you won't be surprised to hear there are many lampposts in Belfast, Belfast have wardrobes and so on that that acclaimed. 134 00:13:41,510 --> 00:13:50,390 Um, and in fact, one particular wardrobe is this one, um, which is the one that now stands in the Marian Wade Centre Museum, 135 00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:56,570 Wheaton College, just outside Chicago, which is the Lewis family wardrobes carved by Lewis's grandfather. 136 00:13:57,320 --> 00:14:05,630 Um, the, uh, when when his father died, Lewis had it shipped over from Belfast so that he could have it in his Oxford home. 137 00:14:06,230 --> 00:14:14,000 So it's obviously important, uh, wardrobe and, um, various stories of growing up about it and said that when he was a small boy, 138 00:14:14,540 --> 00:14:17,720 uh, he used to sit in the wardrobe and tell stories to his brother. 139 00:14:18,350 --> 00:14:24,110 Um, I don't know how you know how easy it would be to sit in that wardrobe, but maybe I'm being too literal about all of this. 140 00:14:24,410 --> 00:14:26,420 Uh, and also being even more literal, 141 00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:35,320 the one in the story we're told is the sort of wardrobe that has a looking glass in the door, and this one doesn't. 142 00:14:35,830 --> 00:14:39,020 Uh, so again, you know, that fails the test in that regard. 143 00:14:39,050 --> 00:14:45,380 But, you know, should we think about fantasy in terms of, you know, trying to locate the real world inspiration for something? 144 00:14:45,950 --> 00:14:51,570 This, incidentally, is the house that Lewis grew up in, little Lee in Belfast. 145 00:14:51,590 --> 00:14:54,590 It's the one he describes at the beginning of Surprise by Joseph. 146 00:14:54,590 --> 00:14:59,210 You know, when he says, they moved from this small house to this enormous house in the countryside? 147 00:14:59,930 --> 00:15:09,070 Um, and there was a little room at the end of the upstairs passage where his brother and he apparently used to go and write stories. 148 00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:17,710 Now that we can believe, because many of those stories survive, um, a world that they created have talking animals, um, called boxing. 149 00:15:18,210 --> 00:15:25,310 And you might think, well, this is an obvious first sort of, um, start on the Narnia stories. 150 00:15:25,430 --> 00:15:28,450 We've got animals, um, talking addressed. 151 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:34,520 Uh, but in fact, it lacks any of the kind of actual fantasy element these are essentially. 152 00:15:34,850 --> 00:15:40,130 Um, but they act and behave and talk as if they were humans. 153 00:15:40,640 --> 00:15:44,960 Um, and they talk about politics and things. And it's Lewis trying to be very grown up. 154 00:15:45,110 --> 00:15:49,939 And in fact, he says in surprise by joining that there is no trace of the kind of imaginative 155 00:15:49,940 --> 00:15:56,140 world which which he was inhabiting and which which he was reading extensively. 156 00:15:56,750 --> 00:16:06,409 Uh, but he wasn't writing it really at that point. And, um, I said that there were various inspirations around Belfast that acclaimed. 157 00:16:06,410 --> 00:16:11,840 And here's a, here's the church where this is baptised, which was where his grandfather was the minister. 158 00:16:12,140 --> 00:16:20,299 Um, this is the vicarage. Um, and this is, it's, uh, this is its door knob, uh, which again is of course, 159 00:16:20,300 --> 00:16:25,550 there's a little plaque saying, you know, this may have been the inspiration for Aslan. 160 00:16:26,780 --> 00:16:32,959 Um, but you know, another thing that that Lewis himself did point to when he was asked about the inspiration for Narnia was 161 00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:38,510 that he said he got the name for the place from a classical atlas that he was using when he was a schoolboy. 162 00:16:39,140 --> 00:16:42,200 Um, and this is that classical atlas. 163 00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:45,920 And here, you know, if you can make it out. But there is a place on it called Narnia. 164 00:16:46,400 --> 00:16:51,830 It's now Naani in Italy and sort of hilltop town, Umbria. 165 00:16:52,250 --> 00:16:57,410 And he said that he was just looking through this map. So the Latin form of Narnia is Narnia. 166 00:16:57,800 --> 00:17:02,060 And that he just he drew upon that name because he liked the sound of it. 167 00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:07,520 Um, again, that's interesting in relation to what I said about Tolkien and place names, I think. 168 00:17:08,330 --> 00:17:14,150 So Narnia was already there in his mind as a, as a an interesting name. 169 00:17:15,350 --> 00:17:20,390 Of course, he never went that or anything. I mean, there was like Tolkien was not well travelled at all. 170 00:17:22,330 --> 00:17:27,490 So that brings us then to back to Oxford. I think I've sort of suggested that he got the idea. 171 00:17:27,850 --> 00:17:31,870 Um, these pictures were in his mind when he was back in his teens. 172 00:17:32,380 --> 00:17:35,890 Um, and he was obviously writing stories, reading widely. 173 00:17:36,270 --> 00:17:44,319 Um, but it's but it's not until in his 40s, when he's living in Oxford, that he decides to see if he can make a story about it. 174 00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:48,130 And we might wonder why at that particular point where he decide to do that. 175 00:17:48,670 --> 00:17:52,719 Well, I said he was living in the new buildings and woodland, so he moved in there in 1925. 176 00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:59,620 But in 1930 he also bought a family home on the edge of Oxford in rising Hirst, known as The Kilns. 177 00:18:00,260 --> 00:18:05,919 Uh, if you haven't been that, you can make an appointment. It's now for a study centre owned by an American foundation. 178 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:13,450 But you can make an appointment in go and have a guided tour of the kilns. It's been reconstructed to look exactly as it was when they lived there. 179 00:18:13,630 --> 00:18:17,320 It's not actually authentic, but but it does give you the sense of it. 180 00:18:17,950 --> 00:18:26,620 And why this is significant, I think, is because in 1939, four schoolgirls were evacuated from London, 181 00:18:27,340 --> 00:18:33,610 uh, to avoid the bombing and brought to this house, um, on the edge of Oxford. 182 00:18:34,700 --> 00:18:38,540 And throughout that they would sort of change over, over, over time. 183 00:18:38,750 --> 00:18:42,770 But throughout the war, he had these factory children living with him. 184 00:18:43,490 --> 00:18:46,970 And he writes very warmly about them to his friends at the time. 185 00:18:47,420 --> 00:18:52,520 And he says, I never really appreciated children until the war brought them to me. 186 00:18:53,670 --> 00:18:57,580 So I think that's a point where he's sort of looking back at his own childhood. 187 00:18:57,600 --> 00:19:01,890 He even says to, you know, his brother at one point, you know, they they keep saying, what shall we do? 188 00:19:02,430 --> 00:19:08,010 He says nothing like our childhood because they, you know, they were immersed in their stories and their imaginative worlds. 189 00:19:08,460 --> 00:19:14,700 I think he's sort of somewhat frustrated and surprised at these children and their their lack of imagination. 190 00:19:15,270 --> 00:19:22,680 Um, but he obviously enjoys having them around. And so that that I think is quite striking, not least because, of course, 191 00:19:23,190 --> 00:19:28,190 if we remember how the book opens, um, that I'm the witch and the wardrobe, that is, 192 00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:32,840 it's with four children being evacuated from London to stay with a, um, 193 00:19:32,850 --> 00:19:37,110 a somewhat forgetful old professor living in a rambling house in the countryside. 194 00:19:37,700 --> 00:19:40,769 Um, so it's it's not difficult to see where Louis might be. 195 00:19:40,770 --> 00:19:46,800 You know why? That might be the trigger that makes him think at this point, the children around, he's got a context for the book. 196 00:19:47,220 --> 00:19:51,540 And at that point, he decides to to see if he can make a story about it. 197 00:19:51,990 --> 00:19:58,970 We don't know exactly when that happened, but there is a first go which survives on the, uh, 198 00:19:59,130 --> 00:20:07,530 back of a page on a story called The Dark Tower, which was an unfinished science fiction story that Lewis had begun writing. 199 00:20:08,340 --> 00:20:13,380 Never finished. But on the back of one of those leaves is this aborted opening. 200 00:20:13,710 --> 00:20:16,800 Um, and I'll show you just a transcription of it so you can see what it says. 201 00:20:17,280 --> 00:20:26,400 So as this book is about four children whose names were, um, Martin, Rose and Peter, but it is most about Peter, who was the youngest. 202 00:20:27,090 --> 00:20:31,050 They all had to go away from London suddenly because of air raids, and because father, 203 00:20:31,350 --> 00:20:36,000 who was in the army, had gone off to the war and mother was doing some kind of war work. 204 00:20:36,650 --> 00:20:42,900 They were sent to stay with a relation of mothers, who is a very old professor who lived by himself in the country. 205 00:20:44,130 --> 00:20:50,010 So probably those of you who know the book well, we'll recognise that that is very similar to the King of the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. 206 00:20:50,010 --> 00:20:55,950 But there are some kind of key and very striking differences, I think, on, uh, let's have a look at the, um. 207 00:20:57,180 --> 00:21:06,330 The same beginning, but in the published version, once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. 208 00:21:07,140 --> 00:21:12,540 This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war, because of the air raids. 209 00:21:13,170 --> 00:21:18,960 They were sent to the house of an old professor who lived in the heart of a country ten miles from the nearest railway station, 210 00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:21,180 and two miles from the nearest post office. 211 00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:29,610 So I suppose the most striking difference there is to do with the names of the children, and particularly to the fact that Peter, 212 00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:36,240 who the first one says this story's going to be mostly about because he was the youngest, has now become the oldest. 213 00:21:36,870 --> 00:21:42,359 And Lucy, who's not mentioned before, has replaced him as the youngest. 214 00:21:42,360 --> 00:21:49,410 And of course, you could really say that the story is mostly about Lucy, in the sense that she's the person who first finds Narnia. 215 00:21:52,070 --> 00:22:02,800 That change, um, may well be related to the dedication that we find in the book, which is to, uh, to Lucy. 216 00:22:03,190 --> 00:22:10,930 Lucy Barfield, the daughter of his great friend, uh, fellow student and fellow incoming Owen Barfield. 217 00:22:12,070 --> 00:22:16,479 And, um, he says it's very it's very sweet dedication. 218 00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:20,380 I'm just going to read it to you. So lovely. My dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you. 219 00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:27,170 But when I began. Uh, when I began it, I had not realised that girls grow quicker than books. 220 00:22:27,500 --> 00:22:33,650 As a result, you're already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and banned, you will be older still. 221 00:22:34,190 --> 00:22:37,670 But someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. 222 00:22:38,090 --> 00:22:42,230 You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it and tell me what you think of it. 223 00:22:42,770 --> 00:22:47,270 I should probably be too deaf to hear and too old to understand a word you say. 224 00:22:47,660 --> 00:22:51,290 But I shall still be your affectionate godfather. C.S. Lewis. 225 00:22:51,820 --> 00:23:00,740 Uh, and that's that's Lucy Barfield in 1947. So he's clearly, in some senses, addressing this to a particular Lucy as well. 226 00:23:00,740 --> 00:23:04,100 And that's obviously part of, of the change that that undergoes. 227 00:23:04,100 --> 00:23:11,260 But I think other than that, I mean, the other obvious connection is that if we think of him as a, um, 228 00:23:11,270 --> 00:23:18,170 the doddery old professor who's living in the countryside, we also remember that he's called, um, Professor Kirk, 229 00:23:18,350 --> 00:23:26,540 which is a nod to his old, um, uh, the not school teacher, because Lewis left school at the age of 14 and went for private tuition, 230 00:23:26,780 --> 00:23:34,130 uh, in English, um, in a village in Surrey, um, where he was taught by, uh, Kirkpatrick. 231 00:23:34,530 --> 00:23:43,010 Uh, and there's clearly, you know, influences that. But other than that, I think we don't find many personal influences in, in the story as it is. 232 00:23:43,970 --> 00:23:53,510 Um, so where do these ideas come from now? Um, where do some of the, um, what was it in Lewis's life at that time, 233 00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:59,900 and particularly his life as an Oxford English tutor that may have influenced, uh, the stories. 234 00:24:00,500 --> 00:24:02,510 And I want to explore some of those things, 235 00:24:02,510 --> 00:24:08,630 going back to some of the things that Caroline mentioned about the nature of the English course and how it might have influenced these stories. 236 00:24:09,830 --> 00:24:12,830 Uh. One. 237 00:24:12,970 --> 00:24:22,840 One feature of these stories, of course, in the 90 stories, is that there are all kinds of strange beasts, mixtures of, um, human and mythical beasts. 238 00:24:22,870 --> 00:24:30,669 Um, there's there's a nice example of that where Edmund is walking through the, uh, witch's, uh, 239 00:24:30,670 --> 00:24:37,300 courtyard where he's surrounded by these, um, strange creatures that have been turned to stone. 240 00:24:37,810 --> 00:24:41,710 Um, and he says there are lots of them standing around like pieces on a chessboard. 241 00:24:42,190 --> 00:24:51,010 Um, and these include things like, uh, wolves, bears, cats, mountains and dragons and, um, and then later on, of course, there's even a kangaroo. 242 00:24:51,490 --> 00:24:58,560 Um, one possible inspiration for that that I've, uh, that I'm sort of intrigued by, but I, you know, as you know, 243 00:24:58,580 --> 00:25:05,800 sceptical of the idea that there are particular real world influence of these strange creatures that inhabit the um, 244 00:25:06,100 --> 00:25:12,669 cloisters at Maudling College, standing, uh, like the stone statues rather like you get in the witch's courtyard. 245 00:25:12,670 --> 00:25:15,820 And it says in that description that they were like chess pieces on a board. 246 00:25:16,180 --> 00:25:19,419 And these are like little chess pieces sitting on that parapets around that. 247 00:25:19,420 --> 00:25:25,600 But again, it's it's tempting, but there's another important, uh, influence, I think. 248 00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:30,460 And if we look at another description of these strange mythical beasts that's here, 249 00:25:30,670 --> 00:25:40,090 the creatures that side with the white witch in the story we're told, uh, uh, they're so they're so, um, terrifying that he can't describe them. 250 00:25:40,090 --> 00:25:43,389 Because if he did, then the grownups wouldn't let them read. 251 00:25:43,390 --> 00:25:52,390 The children read the stories, but he calls them cruel. And hags and incubus wraiths, horrors, efreet sprites, Orkneys ruses and etchings. 252 00:25:52,930 --> 00:25:56,620 Now, I suspect the children were wondering what these creatures were, uh, 253 00:25:56,650 --> 00:26:03,070 because they'd have had to have done some pretty recondite reading as children to know what a wus and Orkney and etting and so on were. 254 00:26:03,490 --> 00:26:10,030 But one thing that they could have been reading to find out would have been Sir Gawain and the Green Knight attacks that, 255 00:26:10,030 --> 00:26:15,760 of course, Lewis would be very familiar with as a, uh, as a young man, but also as a tutor. 256 00:26:16,030 --> 00:26:21,460 One of the standard features of any medieval syllabus, 14th century alliterative poem. 257 00:26:22,420 --> 00:26:31,390 And here you can see that Galloway, on his journey to find the Green Knight in the chapel, um, we're told that he he fights against worms. 258 00:26:32,020 --> 00:26:40,630 Uh, dragons and wolves. What? Those, um, bulls and bulls eye bears and attains. 259 00:26:40,930 --> 00:26:46,329 So these are giants. So these are the the etns and the woos. 260 00:26:46,330 --> 00:26:49,870 Is is the word rose. And then we've got the wolves and the bulls and the bulls. 261 00:26:49,870 --> 00:26:54,040 So many of the same creatures that are turning up with the White Witch here. 262 00:26:54,190 --> 00:26:57,909 You can also find in this description, um, of Sir Gawain. 263 00:26:57,910 --> 00:27:07,000 And we know that Lewis was, uh, a very careful student of this poem because his own copy actually survives, heavily annotated, like all his books, 264 00:27:07,180 --> 00:27:14,740 even with some illustrations to help you make sure you understood all of the strange architectural, technical vocabulary that the poet uses there. 265 00:27:15,730 --> 00:27:19,990 Um. And then Etns. 266 00:27:20,180 --> 00:27:25,489 We find them not just at the, um, on the side of the White Witch and the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. 267 00:27:25,490 --> 00:27:31,100 But of course we find them in etns more. Um, this is all English, Elton. 268 00:27:31,550 --> 00:27:37,340 Um, that's that same line again, the Giants. And you can see that Louis is using etns more. 269 00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:43,700 Um, and these are the etns that that the children um, scrubbing Poland public encounter. 270 00:27:44,210 --> 00:27:51,380 Um, in the silver chair. And you can see I think Maus is also a feature of middle earth two and then wardrobes. 271 00:27:51,950 --> 00:27:59,590 Um, that's the word, uh, in, uh, that, that Louis uses as was uh, would do was, uh, 272 00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:06,440 which means it's an old English word for a wild man of the woods, a savage, uh, a satire or fawn. 273 00:28:06,740 --> 00:28:12,110 Uh, and I've given you a quote there from, um, Lord of the rings, too, because, again, you know, 274 00:28:12,410 --> 00:28:21,650 Lewis and Tolkien are very similar in their way of sort of taking these, uh, medieval words and repurposing them and in their fantasy worlds. 275 00:28:22,340 --> 00:28:29,059 Um, and we know about orc, I'm sure. So Orkneys so the white, which also has the Orkneys on her side. 276 00:28:29,060 --> 00:28:36,440 And this is the Old English word orc, demon or evil spirit, which again, of course, is another feature of, uh, Middle-Earth. 277 00:28:38,310 --> 00:28:45,840 Another obvious source for these kinds of beasts. Are these lines in direwolf in which the poet tries to explain. 278 00:28:46,410 --> 00:28:52,530 This is a Christian poet looking back on a pagan world and trying to understand how in a world created good, 279 00:28:52,710 --> 00:28:58,740 could we have all these strange, monstrous creatures? And he says that they were all the progeny of Cain, the first murderer. 280 00:28:59,340 --> 00:29:02,640 And he says, you know, along with those we find out on us. 281 00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,040 That's the word Athens again. Giants. 282 00:29:05,310 --> 00:29:16,920 And, um, Orkney has Orkneys, as Lewis called them, um, the orcs for Tolkien, such giants who for a long time warred against God. 283 00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:31,400 Um. And worms. Um. This is the Old English word worm or dragon, which of course very important feature of Tolkiens world. 284 00:29:31,610 --> 00:29:36,200 Now, we didn't see that. And we don't see that in The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe, in fact. 285 00:29:36,470 --> 00:29:40,160 But worms do make an appearance later on, of course. 286 00:29:40,430 --> 00:29:49,440 Um, and this scene here, the conversation with smoke, where Bilbo is trying to rescue the Ark and Stone, um, uh. 287 00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:56,200 And, um. Uh, where you've got a dragon on a hoard of treasure. 288 00:29:56,620 --> 00:29:59,320 Uh, does turn up also in Narnia, of course, 289 00:29:59,380 --> 00:30:06,880 because Lewis draws on precisely the same sources as Tolkien is drawing on here in that famous episode in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. 290 00:30:07,060 --> 00:30:18,940 If you remember, um, where he's, um, where, um, Eustace finds himself, um, confronted by, uh, a dragon. 291 00:30:19,060 --> 00:30:23,800 If you remember that, Eustace, that, of course, has read all the wrong books. 292 00:30:24,340 --> 00:30:30,100 Um, when he was a child, he read books of information instead of books of imagination. 293 00:30:30,460 --> 00:30:37,360 And it comes back to bite him, uh, when he finds himself confronted by, um, a huge hoard of treasure. 294 00:30:37,660 --> 00:30:40,300 And he doesn't know what this might signify. 295 00:30:40,690 --> 00:30:50,950 Um, so let me just read this, uh, bit to you at the bottom of the cliff, a little on his left hand was a low, dark hole. 296 00:30:51,610 --> 00:30:58,000 The entrance to a cave, perhaps. And out of this, two thin wisps of smoke were coming. 297 00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:03,920 And the loose stones just beneath the dark hollow were moving. 298 00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:09,470 That was the noise he had heard. Just as if something were crawling in the dark behind them. 299 00:31:11,090 --> 00:31:15,530 Something was crawling, were still something was coming out. 300 00:31:16,190 --> 00:31:20,690 Edmund or Lucy, or you would have recognised it at once. 301 00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:25,670 She says, I'm not recalling that, cause the reader does read books of imagination in fantasy. 302 00:31:25,970 --> 00:31:28,970 But Eustace had read none of the right books. 303 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:34,360 The thing that came out of the cave was something he had never even imagined. 304 00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:38,980 A long lead coloured snout. Dull red eyes. 305 00:31:39,250 --> 00:31:44,710 No feathers or fur. A long, lithe body that trailed on the ground. 306 00:31:45,220 --> 00:31:50,860 Legs whose elbows went right up higher than its back like a spider. 307 00:31:50,890 --> 00:31:54,310 I don't know if dragons really have elbows, do they? But maybe that's the right word. 308 00:31:54,820 --> 00:32:00,790 Um. Cruel claws. Bat's wings that made a rasping noise on the stones. 309 00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:06,070 Yards of tail as the two lines of smoke were coming from its nostrils. 310 00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:13,550 He never said the word dragon to himself, nor would it have made things any better if he had. 311 00:32:14,210 --> 00:32:22,700 So here's a nice moment of encountering the fantastical, um, and being unable to, uh, recognise it. 312 00:32:22,820 --> 00:32:28,460 Being able to recognise the danger that's clearly presented by a large, uh, hoard of treasure. 313 00:32:28,850 --> 00:32:34,850 You know, because he read all the wrong books and even more significantly, of course, what goes on to happen is, 314 00:32:35,060 --> 00:32:39,450 although you'd expect at this point, that would be some kind of big encounter between Eustace and the Dragon. 315 00:32:39,530 --> 00:32:47,270 Like, of course, we get between Bilbo and Smaug in that great kind of riddling conversation, which itself comes straight from Old Norse. 316 00:32:47,750 --> 00:32:51,590 Um, here the dragon simply drops down dead. 317 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,240 Um, and it's a somewhat anticlimactic kind of moment thing. 318 00:32:55,250 --> 00:33:01,260 Think that that wasn't what I was expecting at all. Um, and what Eustace does is it starts to rain. 319 00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:04,370 He goes in and has a sleep in the cave. 320 00:33:05,390 --> 00:33:11,240 Um, and then, of course, he wakes up and finds what you or I would have known. 321 00:33:11,420 --> 00:33:17,600 Anyone who's read all the right books is that if you go to sleep on a dragon's hoard with greedy, 322 00:33:17,630 --> 00:33:22,760 dragon ish thoughts in your mind, you, of course, turn into a dragon. 323 00:33:23,190 --> 00:33:26,480 Uh, that's evidently what had happened to the dragon in the first place. 324 00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:32,810 And again, this goes right back to, uh, Volsung, a saga and to the Norse legends. 325 00:33:33,140 --> 00:33:39,950 And so, you know, again, very like Tolkien, this is drawing upon, uh, the stories that he knew well, 326 00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:46,910 uh, both from his reading as a child, but also from his work, uh, within the Oxford English faculty. 327 00:33:47,690 --> 00:33:55,069 And so that's, I think, why, uh, the Oxford English course, particularly when it comes to Lewis and Tolkien, 328 00:33:55,070 --> 00:34:02,270 is such a critical part of, um, uh, of both of the both of their fantasy worlds. 329 00:34:02,330 --> 00:34:06,110 Um, and I think it's fair to say that, um, you know, 330 00:34:06,110 --> 00:34:13,010 we need to think also about the relationship between the two men because they have a profound influence on each other. 331 00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:17,000 You know, I think I sort of highlight the way in which they're both doing similar things, 332 00:34:17,240 --> 00:34:23,330 using similar kinds of ideas and words to create similar kinds of effects. 333 00:34:23,750 --> 00:34:29,990 Uh, Caroline mentioned the fact that the course in those days was rigorously philological. 334 00:34:30,410 --> 00:34:33,860 Um, and I think that I'm sure she meant it in a positive way. 335 00:34:34,910 --> 00:34:36,230 It wasn't fully implied. 336 00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:47,600 Um, but but but Lewis, I think, came from a from a different tradition to Tolkien and that he was more kind of literary inclined in his viewpoint. 337 00:34:47,930 --> 00:34:56,240 And in fact, you know, there's that famous story of their first meeting, uh, which very conveniently, Lewis left an account of it in his diary. 338 00:34:56,690 --> 00:35:03,650 Um, this was in May 1926, so not long after Lewis had, uh, got his job at maudlin. 339 00:35:03,950 --> 00:35:08,720 Tolkien returned to Oxford for meat, and the two men met at a meeting of the English faculty. 340 00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:13,280 And, uh, they disagreed on a number of things. 341 00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:23,270 They disagreed on the value of the works of Edmund Spenser. Uh, which must have really, uh, uh, irritated Lewis because he was a great fan of Spenser. 342 00:35:24,300 --> 00:35:27,510 In. Tolkien said he couldn't read it because of the forms. 343 00:35:27,930 --> 00:35:37,530 Uh, he didn't like the language. Uh, and then they disagreed on the prominence of, uh, language study to the English syllabus. 344 00:35:37,770 --> 00:35:44,820 Very significantly. That was something that was that Lewis thought, uh, that Tolkien thought was the real thing in the language school. 345 00:35:45,180 --> 00:35:50,040 As Lewis puts it. And and Tolkien, uh, Lewis was much more sceptical. 346 00:35:50,700 --> 00:35:57,689 So I think they did disagree quite heavily on the extent to which the syllabus should be rigorously philological, 347 00:35:57,690 --> 00:36:02,670 and to what extent it should be about reading literature. They both thought it should be about reading early literature. 348 00:36:03,090 --> 00:36:06,420 I mean, Lewis again thought that modern literature. 349 00:36:06,450 --> 00:36:10,200 Why would you? You don't need to teach somebody how to blow their nose, he says. 350 00:36:10,710 --> 00:36:14,190 Uh, so why should you teach them how to read Dickens? And, um. 351 00:36:14,550 --> 00:36:18,510 But but so they both believed it should be, uh, it should be focussed on these periods. 352 00:36:18,780 --> 00:36:27,720 And so I think these texts were absolutely central to them. But but Lewis was somewhat slower to come to, uh, an appreciation of philology as it was. 353 00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:30,630 Um, and that was really under the influence of Lewis. 354 00:36:30,660 --> 00:36:39,600 And in fact, the syllabus that Tolkien created in the 1930s, which is a very rigorously philological one. 355 00:36:40,020 --> 00:36:47,579 Uh, initially Lewis was quite sceptical of it, but Tolkien won him round and he became one of his great most sort of vociferous 356 00:36:47,580 --> 00:36:52,890 supporters as they pushed through these big and far reaching changes to the syllabus. 357 00:36:53,220 --> 00:36:58,260 And in fact, in the 50s, when the whole issue of syllabus reform came up again, 358 00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:04,770 because it was the by that time quite a lot of pushback against philology, against the idea that everything should stop at 1830. 359 00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:11,040 And, uh, there was a working group formed to, uh, decide on, on these matters. 360 00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,720 And they came up and talking was on the working group. They came up with proposals to change it. 361 00:37:16,750 --> 00:37:24,340 And when they were presented to the faculty, Lewis was outraged that Tolkien had gone against the syllabus they first both introduced, 362 00:37:24,850 --> 00:37:30,910 and then he then went around campaigning so rigorously for this, for for keeping things status quo, 363 00:37:31,150 --> 00:37:36,340 that even Tolkien voted against the proposals that he himself had put together. 364 00:37:37,090 --> 00:37:41,800 So it was very confusing, isn't it? But essentially then they then stuck with. 365 00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:50,260 So even in the 50s, this was still a rigorously philological, um, kind of, um, uh, syllabus. 366 00:37:50,260 --> 00:37:54,940 But I think that's why it's so important, because these words like woos, um, Eton. 367 00:37:55,920 --> 00:38:01,320 Worm, um, and so on are ones that, that they are. 368 00:38:01,500 --> 00:38:04,500 And I'm sure if you heard something of this yesterday. 369 00:38:05,190 --> 00:38:09,329 Thinking about talking the word end again, you know, he he talks about the word end, 370 00:38:09,330 --> 00:38:14,340 which is an old English word for a giant being, a word that he wants to do something about. 371 00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:18,360 Um, because they're words that are sort of like blank checks in a way. 372 00:38:18,930 --> 00:38:22,440 Um, we don't know precisely what those refer to. 373 00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:26,400 They refer to some creatures of olden times. 374 00:38:26,730 --> 00:38:33,130 And that allows you the potential to to imagine, um, what they might have been like. 375 00:38:33,150 --> 00:38:36,410 And I think that's that that's a kind of spur to both men. 376 00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,770 So to do is just as much as it is to talking good. 377 00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:43,830 So I think at that point I'm going to draw things to a conclusion. 378 00:38:43,830 --> 00:38:47,520 And then I happy to take any questions that anyone might have. 379 00:38:49,410 --> 00:38:54,130 Thank you. Um. 380 00:38:54,610 --> 00:39:01,180 That's what I've been in back to when I was a child. First. Uh, with that philosophy wardrobe, one of the most memorable scenes for me was when, um, 381 00:39:01,750 --> 00:39:06,190 Edmund meets the witches, uh, treated to Turkish delight and hot chocolate and it's life. 382 00:39:07,610 --> 00:39:10,340 I was interested. I don't actually know much about casinos and history. 383 00:39:10,670 --> 00:39:15,500 Many people are very well travelled, so I guess I'm curious what texture like problem is there? 384 00:39:16,340 --> 00:39:19,790 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. 385 00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:23,990 Um, one I've pondered a lot. So, Turkey, Turkish connections. 386 00:39:24,500 --> 00:39:27,740 Um. Aslan is the Turkish word for a lion. 387 00:39:28,700 --> 00:39:33,050 And he says he met that in the tales of the Arabian Nights. 388 00:39:33,830 --> 00:39:37,340 And he used it because he liked the sound of it. 389 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:45,560 But he also liked the fact that it has the word us. He pronounced it Aslan because s is the Norse word for a god. 390 00:39:46,220 --> 00:39:51,430 So it is a it's a it's an interesting name. Um, and it's, it's Turkish. 391 00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:58,640 So that that I don't think explains or answers your question, but, you know, sort of hints at a Turkish connection. 392 00:39:59,210 --> 00:40:09,210 Um, and I suppose the other thing is, you know, if you read stories at the time, um, children's books that he read Nesbitt and so on. 393 00:40:09,230 --> 00:40:13,370 Turkish Delight does pop up as a kind of fairly standard sweet treat. 394 00:40:14,030 --> 00:40:17,450 Um, I don't know how many other kinds of sweet treats he would have known. 395 00:40:17,990 --> 00:40:21,440 Uh, but the other one that I. That intrigues me. 396 00:40:21,590 --> 00:40:25,660 Um, but, you know, you can post corn on this if you like, but, uh, 397 00:40:25,670 --> 00:40:29,719 Maudling College after, uh, you know, we have a thing called second dessert in Oxford, 398 00:40:29,720 --> 00:40:33,920 which is, you know, you've you've eaten dessert already, and then someone says, do you want some dessert? 399 00:40:34,370 --> 00:40:39,530 And you think that's odd? And this is where different colleges do it differently. 400 00:40:39,950 --> 00:40:44,510 But it's essentially a collection of sorts of. Exotic fruits. 401 00:40:44,870 --> 00:40:48,650 Porte. Um. Uh, chocolates and so on. 402 00:40:48,980 --> 00:40:55,040 But one thing we have at maudlin, which I have not yet found at any other colleges, second, dessert is Turkish delight. 403 00:40:56,420 --> 00:41:02,750 So perhaps he was inspired by, you know, his own experience of eating it or a particular love of it. 404 00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:10,309 Um, I don't know. Um, I will, maybe we have it at end because of money, which the order? 405 00:41:10,310 --> 00:41:14,840 Um, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. 406 00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:21,080 Yeah. I wonder in a second, is that what's the situation in Vienna? 407 00:41:21,350 --> 00:41:30,770 It looks interesting, isn't it? So, uh, one of the questions in mind we have, um, has to do with the use of Old English words by, uh, the US. 408 00:41:31,370 --> 00:41:36,530 And the question is, do you think that this caused old English words to get popular in more recent fantasy? 409 00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:44,400 Um, I would guess so. But I don't know enough about more recent fantasy to know if that's where they're getting it from. 410 00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:50,190 Um, and what the specific examples would be, but that seems rather likely doesn't tell us. 411 00:41:50,670 --> 00:41:56,700 And, um. I don't know if the person asking has a particular example, but that. 412 00:41:58,460 --> 00:42:03,290 I mean, I guess it's either there or it's going back to the medieval sources themselves. 413 00:42:03,590 --> 00:42:10,930 So in some cases it might be that. But I would have thought that, yeah, that to some extent that is being the more likely source. 414 00:42:10,940 --> 00:42:13,339 Yeah. Thank you very much for this. I really enjoyed it. 415 00:42:13,340 --> 00:42:19,790 And I especially enjoyed what you were saying at the end, sort of about the difference between Lewis and Tolkien on philology. 416 00:42:19,820 --> 00:42:27,640 And took Lewis's more sort of literary sensibilities and, um, forgive me if you touched on this and I missed it, but, um, uh, 417 00:42:27,650 --> 00:42:36,469 there's a there's a scholar, Michael Ward, who's written about, um, kind of the cosmological background to, um, to to Lewis's approach. 418 00:42:36,470 --> 00:42:42,770 And it's sort of suggested that if you look at things like the Cosmic Trilogy with space trilogy and some of his poetry, 419 00:42:42,770 --> 00:42:47,260 The Discarded image, these things that have to do with this sense of the medieval cosmology, 420 00:42:47,300 --> 00:42:56,720 this might be, in fact, one of the Lewis's stronger drives, and that even you might see each of the planets represented in the Chronicles themselves. 421 00:42:56,790 --> 00:43:00,679 Uh, do you have any thoughts on that at all? Uh, yeah. 422 00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:12,200 Thanks. Um, I think that he spotted something that's important about the, uh, and he uses the term atmosphere of the stories, 423 00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:18,919 which, you know, Lewis wrote about atmosphere being a really key part of storytelling. 424 00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:25,850 Couldn't he? That famous essay on stories, which talks about how, why, why do we go back to our favourite stories? 425 00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:30,140 Surely not for the plot, because we know what's going to happen is because of the atmosphere. 426 00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:39,220 And I think and he talks. Michael Ward coined the term don't égalité, uh, you know, why do you go back to Donegal all the time? 427 00:43:39,230 --> 00:43:46,610 And what is it about Donegal? And and it's the same for any place, you know, this sort of Oxford nearness of Oxford or something. 428 00:43:46,970 --> 00:43:58,280 Um, and I think that this kind of planetary, uh, these planetary elements that he has identified are important and telling. 429 00:43:59,510 --> 00:44:03,380 So, for instance, that he associates the land which then will drive with Jupiter. 430 00:44:03,890 --> 00:44:09,709 Um, it's about kingship and so on. I think that I think there are lots of sort of important kind of resonances that 431 00:44:09,710 --> 00:44:13,730 come out from having that foregrounded in the way that he's done in his book. 432 00:44:14,990 --> 00:44:26,360 But I, I slightly shy away from his the kind of Narnia code type side of it, which is what the kind of popular version of Planet Narnia was called, 433 00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:33,350 because it suggests that that was the kind of key to understanding these stories, 434 00:44:33,350 --> 00:44:42,739 and that Lewis set out to hide it within them, and that it was there to kind of, you know, to to to explain them in some way. 435 00:44:42,740 --> 00:44:50,300 And I think that just takes it too far. Uh, and not least because it's clear that Lewis wrote The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe as a one off. 436 00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:55,110 And he didn't really intend to write a series of books at that point. 437 00:44:55,110 --> 00:44:58,140 And at the end of it, he then starts thinking about a sequel. 438 00:44:58,740 --> 00:45:04,889 One imagines the publisher is contacting him at the time and he's thinking, well, I probably got more, I can say, but he is. 439 00:45:04,890 --> 00:45:08,070 He's casting around for ideas at that point. He's got plenty of them. 440 00:45:08,070 --> 00:45:11,490 I mean, you know, his imagination is constantly bubbling up, I think. 441 00:45:11,850 --> 00:45:20,760 But he hasn't. He's not planned ahead in the way that you would have to if you're thinking about it as a series of planetary, um, novels. 442 00:45:21,450 --> 00:45:25,680 And then I think it does start to get going as a series. 443 00:45:26,010 --> 00:45:30,569 And it's only really, I would say, about to towards the end of it, 444 00:45:30,570 --> 00:45:36,210 but he that he specifically and explicitly in a letter to some children says that they're going to be seven of them. 445 00:45:37,290 --> 00:45:41,790 Um, so he has decided at that point, but he certainly hasn't at the beginning. 446 00:45:41,790 --> 00:45:47,669 I think it's much more happenstance, and I can see how he might think I'm going to write a book about The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe. 447 00:45:47,670 --> 00:45:53,220 It's going to involve kingship and Jupiter, and things associated with Jupiter are going to be prominent. 448 00:45:53,820 --> 00:46:01,979 Um, but that, I don't think, means that the whole series was intended or that somehow it's a bit reductive in its most extreme form. 449 00:46:01,980 --> 00:46:05,520 That idea, I would say. But but it's it's a really rich book. 450 00:46:05,610 --> 00:46:09,299 I would say, you know, for anyone who hasn't read Planet Narnia, it's really worth reading. 451 00:46:09,300 --> 00:46:16,690 It's very scholarly, is lots to get out of it. Uh, let's listen to interested can be Sussex degree. 452 00:46:16,980 --> 00:46:21,030 Tolkien tried. Um, what do you think? 453 00:46:21,420 --> 00:46:29,460 Like that sort of a study of English. And then don't say like I see it says all the possible influences they might be having. 454 00:46:29,820 --> 00:46:35,780 It seems like. Oh, that's right, territory isn't as big as I'd be like. 455 00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:41,400 And so why do you think? Well, the not stuff went. Well. 456 00:46:42,430 --> 00:46:49,700 I suppose I could say it. I mean, for instance, if it starts with a pitch, an image of a fawn standing in a snowy wood, 457 00:46:49,700 --> 00:46:53,770 then you could say the classical literature is still fairly prominent. 458 00:46:54,760 --> 00:47:05,950 I don't think, I mean, because, of course, part of what Tolkien seems to object to in Narnia is that it isn't just a kind of a consistent worldview, 459 00:47:05,980 --> 00:47:09,340 it's a jumbling of mythologies and literatures, 460 00:47:09,670 --> 00:47:17,220 and therefore the classical side of it, you know, um, Dionysus turns up and Bacchus and, 461 00:47:17,230 --> 00:47:23,350 you know, there's that there are sort of the, um, there are lots of classical moments. 462 00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:29,390 In Narnia. And so I don't think that's all gone away or. 463 00:47:29,630 --> 00:47:33,740 But could it been superseded perhaps. Because I think. 464 00:47:36,380 --> 00:47:42,620 And maybe that is a more productive, um, mode for Lewis in particular. 465 00:47:43,220 --> 00:47:50,080 Um, that the medieval. Um, but I think he's still, you know, that there are there are moments where, you know, 466 00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:57,010 Milton and Shakespeare and there's a, there's a richness to Narnia, which obviously Tolkien. 467 00:47:57,010 --> 00:48:00,490 It didn't appeal to Tolkien in that, if that's to be believed. 468 00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:05,770 But but I think that is what what Lewis is doing, you know, I mean, for instance, 469 00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:10,560 one obvious example of the Milton influence would be the creation of Narnia. 470 00:48:10,570 --> 00:48:17,060 You know, he calls the founding of Narnia and The Magician's Nephew, where, uh, 471 00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:23,080 Aslan is sort of singing the world into being and the animals start to appear. 472 00:48:23,230 --> 00:48:28,360 If you remember, they come out from under the ground and start bursting through the earth. 473 00:48:29,050 --> 00:48:36,640 Um, then you've got this sort of strange, branching, twig like things, and it turns out to be the antlers of a deer that comes up through the ground. 474 00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:42,040 And then this sort of big baggy trousers, um, elephant comes, comes up, 475 00:48:42,190 --> 00:48:47,950 and he's just got this directly from, um, Milton's description of creation in Paradise Lost. 476 00:48:47,950 --> 00:48:51,630 So, you know, I think Lewis is a bit of a magpie, uh, 477 00:48:51,730 --> 00:49:01,450 and all the things that he likes turn up in Narnia and that's classics is it's some classical stuff as well as is all kinds of English literature. 478 00:49:01,900 --> 00:49:07,090 Thanks again so much for the talk is so fascinating. Um, I was just wondering. 479 00:49:07,140 --> 00:49:12,880 I've done that somewhere. Or, um, the night after The Hobbit. 480 00:49:13,970 --> 00:49:20,629 Mhm. He was possibly inspired to write a children's story because they have been so successful. 481 00:49:20,630 --> 00:49:24,890 It's supporting. Well there's a bit of a gap but it certainly came after it. 482 00:49:25,310 --> 00:49:29,960 And I mean obviously the dating around The Hobbit is slightly tricky as well. 483 00:49:29,990 --> 00:49:35,930 But we know that Lewis was given a copy of the manuscript in the early 1930s to read it. 484 00:49:36,530 --> 00:49:44,780 You know, it didn't get published until 1937. Um, and again, that's largely because, of course, Tolkien wasn't planning to publish publish it himself. 485 00:49:44,780 --> 00:49:50,179 He wrote it for his children. And that's, again, was an interesting contrast because but the first, first of this, 486 00:49:50,180 --> 00:49:56,990 these people I mentioned to write a children's story was actually Owen Barfield, who wrote The Silver Trumpet, which came out in 1925. 487 00:49:57,990 --> 00:50:06,610 Um, and it was. And he lent it to Lewis, who lent it to Tolkien, who read it to his children, and it was a great favourite with them, he says. 488 00:50:06,620 --> 00:50:08,910 So he actually began that process. 489 00:50:09,330 --> 00:50:15,150 Um, but they Barnfield and Tolkien had children that they were reading to, and that's how the stories kind of emerged. 490 00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:20,310 Uh, Lewis did read The Hobbit early on and enthused greatly about it. 491 00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:26,970 Um, and of course, he was a big believer in, you know, reading fairy tales when you were a grown up. 492 00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:32,490 As he says to Lisa, you know, you might you might go off them for a bit, but you'll be old enough one day to read them again. 493 00:50:33,240 --> 00:50:38,490 Um, so in that sense, I think that, you know, The Hobbit could have inspired him as a, 494 00:50:38,490 --> 00:50:42,720 as a concept, but it's it's quite a bit earlier than when he sits down to write banana's story. 495 00:50:43,230 --> 00:50:51,590 Um. So yeah, I mean, it must have made a difference that his friends had written children's stories, I suppose. 496 00:50:51,830 --> 00:50:57,120 And, uh, interesting what you suggest about maybe the success of it, as if perhaps its thinking, you know, like that sort of. 497 00:50:57,320 --> 00:51:02,389 Look, there's money to be made in these books, but I don't just don't think there is still in those terms really. 498 00:51:02,390 --> 00:51:08,180 Like he says, there's, there's a, there's one other article where he's, he's being asked about the origins of the 90 stories, 499 00:51:08,180 --> 00:51:15,050 and he said one, it was one of those moments in my life where I write a fairy story was what I had to do or burst. 500 00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,309 So it's coming from within him, I think largely. 501 00:51:19,310 --> 00:51:26,240 I mean, he doesn't really again, explain what he means by that, but but there's something there's something he needed to get down. 502 00:51:26,240 --> 00:51:30,620 And the fairy story, he says, was the only mode in which I could write it. 503 00:51:31,460 --> 00:51:38,210 Um, yeah. Thank you. So I'm just going to read the question, which is in two parts. 504 00:51:38,720 --> 00:51:42,740 Um, it's up to you which one you have. So the question is, 505 00:51:42,950 --> 00:51:50,360 is it ever going to be possible to create a fantasy atmosphere or a universe that is not steeped in the classical mythology, legends, 506 00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:51,680 folk and fairy tales, 507 00:51:51,680 --> 00:52:00,710 language and locations such as Oxford that inspired the fantasy pioneers like Tolkien and Lewis and something closer to, um, C.S. Lewis. 508 00:52:00,890 --> 00:52:03,980 And then where does the London Trilogy differ? 509 00:52:04,700 --> 00:52:08,690 Um, deficit in relation to fantasy versus sci fi? 510 00:52:09,050 --> 00:52:11,060 So I guess so. 511 00:52:11,060 --> 00:52:19,340 I think that's the last piece of that with uh, uh, so I guess the question is, uh, where does the London Trilogy sits in relation to fantasy? 512 00:52:19,700 --> 00:52:25,730 Uh, and sci fi kind of. Can we talk? What do we talk about it, uh, sci fi or is it fantasy still? 513 00:52:26,570 --> 00:52:33,940 Thank you. Oh, that's that's for somebody who really knows about, uh, the sci fi genre. 514 00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:37,670 Um, I would think that. 515 00:52:38,910 --> 00:52:45,090 By modern standards, it's pretty poor sci fi. He's got no interest in any of the technical stuff. 516 00:52:45,830 --> 00:52:49,530 Uh, how you get to Mars and making it remotely believable. 517 00:52:50,130 --> 00:52:55,620 Um, it's a it's more of a kind of what he calls it kind of sort of philosophical. 518 00:52:56,280 --> 00:53:06,420 Um, sci fi. I think maybe it's I mean, it's much closer to kind of HG Wells that got that kind of writing, um, than it is more than sci fi, I suspect. 519 00:53:07,140 --> 00:53:11,760 Um, and the first question was about, oh, yeah, is it possible to write fantasy without. 520 00:53:12,390 --> 00:53:17,700 No, no, you have to do an Oxford English degree. No, I think I think we're making that abundantly clear, aren't we? 521 00:53:18,930 --> 00:53:24,930 You have to read Beowulf. You have to read. Uh, so I in the Green Knight in the original language. 522 00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:29,250 Uh, study your accents and wheezes, and then, you know, you're all set. 523 00:53:29,660 --> 00:53:33,660 Uh, but no, of course you can make you can make things up. Yeah, that's the beauty of it, I guess. 524 00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:39,090 But it's obviously a rich and productive way of sort of drawing on, I mean, Tolkien in particular, I guess. 525 00:53:39,090 --> 00:53:44,010 But I think Lewis too, has has had an important influence on modern fantasy writing. 526 00:53:44,460 --> 00:53:55,470 Do you think that Lewis, in taking inspiration from all of the things around in this perhaps uncreative writing before you shop? 527 00:53:55,740 --> 00:54:04,590 Uh, Penelope sail. Or do you think that we should copy him and also take inspiration from the mundane world around us? 528 00:54:06,370 --> 00:54:18,730 It's a great quote doesn't here about, um, going into about what it means to read about, um, fantastical worlds and magical woods and things. 529 00:54:19,240 --> 00:54:23,709 And so he says that that, that he it's in answer to the you know, 530 00:54:23,710 --> 00:54:30,700 what it does it does it mean that everything seems greatly mundane when you've read a fantasy story and then you're back in the real world? 531 00:54:30,700 --> 00:54:36,249 And he says, reading about Enchanted Woods doesn't actually make you it doesn't make everything else seem completely mundane, 532 00:54:36,250 --> 00:54:40,270 but it makes real woods just a little bit enchanted. 533 00:54:40,570 --> 00:54:47,230 And I think that's what he's what he wants to do is not leave us in this kind of mundane world, but actually try and see how, in fact, 534 00:54:47,710 --> 00:54:49,570 the world that we live in, um, 535 00:54:49,930 --> 00:54:59,200 is full of these kinds of amazing and enchanting kind of concepts and see those potentially as an inspiration to write fantasy. 536 00:54:59,650 --> 00:55:09,370 Um, you know, you don't have to think of all other wardrobes as being completely, um, you know, just boring old, uh, functional wooden wardrobes, 537 00:55:09,370 --> 00:55:18,190 but actually could be all themselves is slightly enchanted and portals into any, anywhere else you might want to go without considering you think. 538 00:55:22,010 --> 00:55:22,210 So.